At Chortle Fast Fringe 2010

Disproving God

More Carey Marx videos

Carey Marx: Laziness & Stuff
Live Review

Carey Marx is impotent.

Comedically speaking, at least. He’s been offering up ideas to change the world for a decade or so, but, he admits: ‘No one is really listening to me.’

He can’t even get the audience he deserves – this was a particularly lairy weekend crowd, with a bunch of lads in the front row letting rip with a Pavlovian ‘way-hey!’ when Marx says, with no intention of double entendre: ‘My wife came into the bedroom.’ Never mind the clever theories and smart punchlines, with which Marx is well-endowed, comedy is merely saying the word ‘come’, apparently.

It certainly made for an odd dynamic. Much of Marx’s material is aimed at exploding some hack comedy myths: how crap in bed must you be to not be able to find a clitoris, for example. Only problem is, our laddy lads clap the tired myths as if it was comedy gold, not interested in the deconstruction. But after something of an awkward battle of wills, Marx pulled the gig back to his agenda; those years served on the circuit coal-face doing him proud.

Once he was finally allowed to deliver his intended material, Marx demonstrated his usual flair for giving uncomfortable subjects a cheeky twist. He can be quite brutal, in a darkly comic Quentin Tarantino kind of way, as his routine on ‘rabbi rape’ clearly proves. But generally the tone is playful – whether it’s on testicles floating in the bath or , erm, slapping women. Not acceptable, but surprisingly playful.

Fat people come in for some particular stick; he hates the way they seem to stop dead in the street, and the anecdote about a fat schoolgirl on a bus is hilarious – and far from the usual complaints about tinny mobile phone music.

There’s no astounding high concept to this show, just a few themes to link otherwise disparate chunks of stand-up. But he’s a bright operator, with a smart – even smartarse – flair to much of his writing that guarantees a solid cascade of laughs.

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Like many others, I saw Carey at the Leeds festval and loved the fact that he spoke his mind rather that being all PC.

Paul, April 2005

Best act of the night, the whole snowman part was hilarious, and just the parts that he came out with were shocking but you have to laugh. Great act.

James, December 2004

Saw him in Bracknell. Very dark, very funny. Good end to a good night. Particularly liked the way he dealt with that irritating drunk woman

Tom F, November 2004

Saw Carey at Reading Festival. He was my favourite comedian, hilarious and unexpected punchlines. To the person critizising his Albino hatred as hateful, it's all tongue-in-cheek. At one point in his show he made fun of a lady in one of his audiences who took him seriously and told him after the show "I'm glad somebody's finally doing something about the albino problem in this country". If you see him live he is very funny and not at all offensive compared to other comedians I have seen.

Cavy, September 2004

Absolute legend in Leeds festival this year, superb.

Rhys Thomas, September 2004

The art of redirection is an old trick. The idea is to redirect the hate and disgust of people onto someone else. This way, the chances of these bitter feelings being directed back toward the one doing this is decreased. Perhaps, it is an insecurity. Those who are afraid of being ridiculed by others must redirect the bad feelings to someone else. For those who need someone else to hate, people with albinism make perfect scap-goats. There are so few people with albinism around, it is hard to see why they would realy pose a threat. Maybe Carey is really making fun of the unfounded fear and hatred that people have for what they don't understand. He is also showing just how willing a lot of people are to believe something just because someone on stage or television tells them so.

Wayne, January 2004

Saw him in Cambridge last week. He walked off stage after ten minutes or so, saying that the audience weren't good enough for him. Can all 200+ people all be wrong? I think he should get his money back.

Gordy, December 2003

The funniest man I saw at Edinburgh this year, he is neither ginky nor gonky but good solid fun. I even went albino hunting after his show.

Janey Godley, December 2003

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